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I use the Startron Enzyme treatment and switched to the 10 micron filters. So far no problems.

How old is the Boat/Engine. If it is an older boat it might have some build up in the tank and lines. The Ethanol will wash it out and possibly clog up a few things if you don't change the filters. Do a search on the forum. You will have a bunch of reading material.

04 boat and engine with 550 hours well taken care of. I'm a maintenance freak. I always store the boat with a full tank and it gets used all the time. Do either one of the products mentioned above have a "top lube" in them or do I need to worry about that?

By the term "Top Lube" I assume you mean something like Ring Free from Yamaha. Startron does not. I also run Ring Free in my boat. I know they work well together. At 150 hours I had a valve guide crack off and got swallowed into the cylinder. Purely a freak thing. Yamaha very Quickly replaced the engine under warranty. When they were removing the heads to find the "noise" I was looking at the inside. The heads and pistons (except for the one with all the metal and dings in it) were clean as a whistle. The technician remarked that I must be using the Ring Free like I was supposed to. Judging from what I witnessed I will keep using it.

I asked the same basic question a few days ago, by the way thanks for the respones guys, much appreciated. I also taled to local mechanics. I have decided to use ring free and the blue sta bil just another thougt for you to ponder ,also check back a few days on this forum under the heading gas additives lots of good info I am running a 100 h.p. yamaha four stroke my first four stroke , hed 2 strokes all my life I hope this helps you and thanks again to all who took the time to give me your advice. as always tight lines ,screendog

Thanks guys! The term "top lube" comes from running alcohol in drag cars. I have a F225, a four stroke. I was concerned if I needed to run anything because of 10% ethanol. I know that Ring Free is for the 2 stroke motors. I know the effects ethanol has running engines leaner and drawing moisture from the air. From what I've been reading that 2 strokes are more prone to having issues but not 4 strokes. Because I'm a worry wart, I wanted to know if I needed anything. Thanks for the reply's

I also have an F225 and I use startron & marine stabil all the time. 4 stroke outboard motors run at a much lower temp than our vehicles do, and at a much higher rpm for extended time periods. that is why you still have to treat for carbon build up. it is not as drastic as in the 2 strokes, but it is still needed.....

Example; My boat and motors were new September 07, the boat is now just over 12 months old. I have over 300 hours and ran thousands of gallons of ethanol with no problems since day 1. I have only just changed fuel filters after 300 hours because I wanted to see how long I could go without doing so. The motors were still performing flawlessly but, I decided to change the filters anyways since I spend a lot of time 100 plus miles offshore. I have not used any fuel additive what so ever and the clear glass bowls on the botom of my racors has always been extreamly clean with zero water. And I should add that my fuel tanks are fiberglass with an ethanol resistant coating.

I've been using Ethanol fuel here in CT for at least 5 years. The only problem I had was with my first fill up on a old boat. My VST filter got clogged on my Yamaha because the 20 year old fuel tank got scrubbed by the Ethanol fuel and it put lots of particulate matter into my system. FWIW, I didn't use a Racor filter at the time.

My friend bought the boat and has had 5 years of trouble free fuel since. My current boat, now on it's 4th season has never had any ethanol "fuel additives" and has never had any problems. I keep an eye on the clear bowl on my Racor and it's always fine.

Service Managers in South Florida say essentially the same thing:
1. if your boat is new or less than a few years old, you problably won't have any problems
2. Like Lee (24/7) points out - using the boat is the biggest deterrent to problems
3. and watch out for stations that are just switching over, they are going to be pumping their crap from their tanks being cleaned into yours for a few months or so.
4. there is no "holy grail" of additives - most delay phase seperation - (which is good)

This is becoming a big problem for the car mfrs also..many mfrs are starting to do fuel checks at the actual stations and finding upwards of e-20 or even 30 in the tanks...and at that level the alcohol in the fuel does not allow proper lubrication of the pump...hence they go bad....